Around 100 member banks of the Italian Banking Association have joined the new blockchain launched by R3's Corda, Spunta, a national blockchain that facilitates interbank data transfers.
La Italian Banking Association (ABI) reported through a release that around 100 Italian banks are operating in the sector blockchain thanks to a digital system designed by R3. It is Spunta Banca DLT, a solution designed for bank reconciliation, which is based on the blockchain Cord Enterprise de R3 and governed by the Italian Banking Association, which manages about 80% of the country's banking industry.
Spunta is an innovative solution that allows entities in this sector to enjoy great and better benefits while simplifying all internal processes and reducing operating costs. The new blockchain-based system integrates a whole set of innovative tools capable of simplifying even the processes of verifying correspondence that banks maintain with each other to stay informed and pay their bills. A process that these entities traditionally carry out through complicated and bureaucratic methods through back office and it is now much simpler and more efficient thanks to this blockchain.
Banks have joined Spunta in batches, as reported by the Italian Banking Association. The latest batch is a group recently integrated on October 13 and made up of a total of 42 banks. Previously, during March, the first group of Italian banks joined, made up of 32 entities, and during May, the second group was integrated, made up of 23 banking entities. Thus, at the time of writing, a total of 97 Italian banks have already entered the world of blockchain through Spunta.
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Transformation of the interbank system in Italy
As already mentioned, Spunta is a solution that integrates an innovative system designed to enable the Italian banking industry to take advantage of the potential and benefits of blockchain technology and transform its entire interbank reconciliation process.
“Spunta Banca DLT is fully operational for the interbank reconciliation process. Today, around 100 banks have daily access to their own nodes to manage this interbank process, which has gone from a traditional, slow and laborious exchange of telephone calls and messages, to a solution that takes advantage of a technological frontier that speeds up and automates the reconciliation of transactions.”
The efficiency offered by this blockchain allows the interbank reconciliation process to be carried out automatically between entities every night, with a 97,6% match in processed transactions. This is undoubtedly a significant and successful step forward for Italian banks, which used to carry out this process on a monthly basis due to its complexity. The distributed ledger technology (DLT) used by Corda simplifies this process by allowing the automatic detection of all interbank transactions, including those that do not match, and providing all its participants with a complete and detailed view of the transaction history.
Moreover, as Spunta is a blockchain network, it allows the integration of more nodes and banking entities, so ABI can design the relationship and exchanges between participants in a different way. Furthermore, being a blockchain, Spunta also allows the creation and integration of new and better applications, which guarantee the future development of the industry.
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Spunta has so far processed a total of 204 million transactions since it went live in March 2020, ABI said in its statement, noting that this number will increase exponentially by the end of the year. The Italian Banking Association estimates that by the end of 2020, Spunta will have processed more than 350 million interbank transactions.
The participating banks include: Allianz Bank Financial Advisors, Banca Agricola Popolare di Ragusa, Banca Popolare di Fondi, Banca Popolare Valconca, UBI Banca, UniCredit, Widiba and several others. It is important to note that ABI is home to over 700 banking entities throughout Italy, so the 97 banks in Spunta represent just 13,8% of all the entities that make up the Association.
Expansion plans and interest in Europe
The use cases that Spunta has had so far are focused on streamlining bank reconciliations between participating banks, which through this network only take 1 hour and can be done daily without problems. Now, ABI plans to extend Spunta to more complex cases and integrate new applications that allow the network to work at its maximum capacity to process an average volume of 8.400 billion transactions in the future.
Although this is not the first blockchain network implemented in the Italian banking industry by R3, Spunta is rapidly taking the sector by storm, to the point that many European banks are following its progress and development. Furthermore, the Italian Banking Association also noted that it is studying the possible creation of an international working group that will allow it to learn about and establish the necessary and indispensable steps to ensure the automation of the “nostro” and “vostro” account processes across different countries and, therefore, extend Spunta’s services to the entire European banking sector. The association states that there is a lot of potential for the implementation of new technologies within the banking sector in Italy and Europe and that the expansion of these products and services will foster a broad and fluid relationship between all banking entities in the region.
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